Feel the mushroom fear and chew it anyway

Reducing the carbs, increasing the fungus. I'm jumping on that bandwagon.

“There are no carbs in wine,” I tell myself as I pour myself a glass of liquid sunshine. It’s the kind of sunshine that lingers in the evening after a hazy summer day, that wraps you in its warming embrace and says, “Drink the wine, Georgia. There’s no carbs in it. None at all.” In short, it’s a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, the Cate Blanchett of the wine world – you know it’s always going to be good, even if it is served in a children’s dinosaur themed sippy cup because the all the glasses are in the dishwasher.

As you may have guessed, I am attempting to reduce my carbohydrate intake. As you may also have guessed, I am deliriously happy that dry wines are in fact, low-carb. “No-carb” may be stretching it, but I’m happy enough with “low”. I don’t have the willpower to give up bread or chocolate completely anyway, so I’ll aim for a “medium carb” lifestyle, so to speak. I haven’t had potatoes or pasta for two months. Not bad, given the fact that I used to eat them in three or four dinners each week. I let myself have wholemeal, seeded toast for breakfast, but with eggs or peanut butter so that the fat slows down the absorption of sugar.

I’m not doing this to lose weight. This will not be a quick diet to be ditched along with the January’s well-intentioned gym membership. I am only doing this because I suspect there is something amiss with my body’s response to insulin. I have unwanted facial hair that I rip out a couple of times a week, I’m prone to acne (although most of the reddish marks on my face are in fact acne scars that I can’t shift – oh the joys of pale skin), and I previously had gestational diabetes. The diabetes was only discovered in the 11^th hour of pregnancy when concerns about my baby’s growth meant having an extra ultrasound which revealed he was, in medical terms, bloody huge. I hadn’t been tested as a matter of routine before this as I was a healthy weight and had white skin, so did not meet the criteria for early testing.

All of these point to insulin resistance. Of course, I never did get round to booking the diabetes test I should have had thirteen weeks post-birth. In my defence, it often takes up to an hour to get through to the surgery, I was under the impression that the testing requires sitting around a sports centre café smelling other people’s chips (what better food to eat at a sports centre, really?) after a 14 hour fast and a blood test, and I really didn’t want to do it. Alright, they’re terrible reasons. I know this, I have repented, and I am (as of this week) waiting for the result of my 1-year post-birth blood test. This one only required a quick trip to the GP surgery, no fasting or anything like that, so I may have been mistaken about what the 13-week test would have entailed. I guess I’ll find out if I have any more children.

Even without any concrete results, I know that reducing my carbohydrate intake is a sensible move, and one I can get started on. I’ve removed most processed carbohydrates, most fruit, and starchy vegetables from my diet. I’ve increased my meat and oily fish intake, and I’m drinking more water. I’m already active, as I spend my days mostly crawling after, or carrying around, a one-year-old baby, and he likes to shout incoherent abuse at me if I ever sit down comfortably. Best personal trainer there is, frankly.

Basically, I’ve avoided all the standard dietary advice you can get from the NHS, which tells us that starchy foods should make up about a third of what we eat. If I followed this advice, I would probably grow a beard to make Captain Birdseye blush (the old, proper Captain, not that creepy hot Captain. Captain Birdseye should not be sexy, and that is a hill I will die on). I’ve also determined to conquer my overwhelming disgust, and dare I say, fear, of mushrooms. Mushrooms are a wonderfully healthy food, and they fill up a meal with cheap protein, and they definitely won’t reform in your stomach like a fungal Terminator and start communicating with other mushrooms as you go about your business. The faeries will not turn you inside out for eating them (they like to build their homes and portals out of mushrooms and toadstools), and they should never be referred to as “The Devil’s Chode”. All of this is childish nonsense, clearly.

I’ve come to accept that when chopped up very finely and sauteed with butter, salt, pepper, and garlic, mushrooms are in fact perfectly palatable. So far, I’ve used them to make Marina Slajerova’s Broccolli Alfredo (from All Day Keto – my new favourite recipe book, I can’t recommend it highly enough), filled out a chicken and chorizo frittata with them, and made a lovely stuffing for chicken breasts with them. I have managed to conquer a deep-seated, lifelong revulsion for the suspiciously smooth fungi, whose tendril-like undersides still make me think of decay and death. I’m completely fine with the skin-like texture of their delicate outsides, and the tiniest “pop” sound they make when I accidentally detach the stalk from the head doesn’t concern me at all, nor does the constant screaming in my head as I prepare them. Mushroom dread is no match for my desire to be healthy, as permanently and thoroughly as possible.

On that note, I will use this Substack at times to share low/medium carb recipes, some involving mushrooms, some not involving fungal foodstuffs that may as well have been invented by the Brothers Grimm. In the meantime, if you’d like to share your own favourite low-carb recipes in the comments, I’m always grateful for ideas.